In the last week, two 2016 GOP contenders attacked Hillary Clinton for her private email use. The ironic thing? Both of them have a shady record of hiding emails from the public.
Today, Chris Christie asked CNN anchors if they could imagine the reaction if Bridgegate messages were deleted. The problem? Christie’s staff did delete messages regarding Bridgegate. On Friday, Jeb Bush lied at the Iowa Soapbox when he said that he released all of his emails – the truth is, more than half of them were not turned over.
Jeb and Christie seem to be suffering from a serious case of political amnesia, but they aren’t the only ones who have serious problems with transparency – Marco Rubio deleted emails from his private account after copies were requested by the public and Scott Walker’s office used a secret email system hidden from public record.
GOP contenders are holding Hillary Clinton to a transparency double standard. When will they have to answer for their hypocrisy?
- In the federal criminal investigation into Bridgegate, Chris Christie’s staff was caught using personal emails and text messages to cover up the scandal – his top aide even testified that she deleted text messages with Christie about the lane closings.
- Christie staffers used private emails to conduct state business and ignored journalists’ requests to view them.
- Chris Christie administration emails and texts released during the Bridgegate investigation “revealed…that state officials use personal e-mail accounts and cell phones to communicate.”
- Jeb Bush used a private email account as Governor of Florida and owned his own server. Jeb said he received 550,000 emails on his private account during his eight years as governor, but only released 250,000 of these emails – doing so nearly eight years after his time in office, even though a Florida law required him to turn over records “at the expiration of his or her term in office.”
- Marco Rubio used a personal email account while Florida House Speaker and then deleted emails after copies were requested from the public.
- Scott Walker was the subject of a criminal investigation of political corruption and helped draft a bill to make public records harder to access. Walker’s office also had a secret email system hidden from public record and his staffers were charged with illegal activity over their email use.